Prose before hos

"I don't care for what's done, I want to see what you do."

6 rounds of Scrabble lost with Paddy, my friend in the UK, who insists on checking in on me and has since introduced me to multiple new word games so I can have a new routine in the evening

Many rounds of catchups with old friends, some of whom are doing as badly, some worse and some unanswered calls there. But roughly, 4 friendships rekindled

2 international, long-distance phone calls over 60 minutes where I howled like a baby and was pacified by very calm, younger men

3 Tarot Card readers, 1 nutritionist, 4 doctors, 1 therapist employed in the last 40+ days on giving me some terrible, no-good, bad news on my health, future, life in no order necessary

4 rounds of blood work in 30 days over a new health condition that I might be living with and have to alter my whole fucking life to work around it

0 Diet Coke consumed

2 Salman Khan films watched

3 magazines purchased, 2 read. Wtf did they do to Tinkle's font ffs? Also, THR is YUM in terms of design and layout. More collectible editions please

3 Uniqlo outfits, 2 ice creams on a Friday afternoon because nobody deserves to be sad over their period and heartbreak—especially me

1 very young person showing interest. Third Tarot Card reader who I disregarded was onto something

6 Parks discovered. Unfortunately, Lodhi Garden wins the whole park debate because DUCKS, BRIDGE, FLOWERS all in upper case excitement despite living, breathing, coping in Delhi for 33 years

5 new playlists, 1 new Pokemon in the game I've been playing (grinding)

I fucking love Summer

Shiv Roy wouldn't, I just know it. She wouldn't be this sad even while she's pmsing. 

The way I shed the skin of my selfhood after each heartbreak needs to be critically studied by scientists researching on sustainability. I'm a new person in my heart and yet, it's never enough for me. I always feel like I'm swimming in the same water when that's hardly the case. 

It only sinks in, how I'm a new individual when I have a run-in with someone who didn't walk the mile in my shoes during the said transition. It's even better when it's someone who knew me 5-6 heartbreaks ago. They're usually in shock to see the 'new' me and I'm usually gobsmacked to hear about the 'old' me and how I was perceived. 

It's usually the parts that were perceived are the ones that are first to be rewritten. I don't know how that happens, but it's unconscious and when someone brings it up, that's when the first realisation hits- oh shit, oh fuck, I used to be that. 

But, what about those parts that remain? What about the filthy sleeve full of the same personality and the choices I carry today? What about the outtakes I measured and engaged in and safely bubble-wrapped to be indulged in another day? They're simply there, in ether. 

There is a no-man land where they exist parallel to my new self, in an archival state, and I don't know what to do with them. Those are the things I liked way too much to let go of during my transformation or allow to be discarded in my transformation or memory rewriting. 

I find their existence similar to those of pre-teens who face divorce and watch their biological parents go through new partner(s). That's how some of my opinions and choices feel—they were a composite whole in the company of another individual, who is now seemingly missing, but those opinions, which were once mine or ours still remain. Some are unclaimed and some are claimed with a disclaimer, there's some context that I don't have the bandwidth to get into right now, I hope you'll understand. 

Some, such, unclaimed, unlucky and orphaned thoughts linger on the regular. Every time I see a certain car, I'm reminded of a man who once cheerfully gleamed at a stranger on his good choice cause they had the same model. Another time, I saw the model of a car and thought to myself, it's an apt name for a car owned by the man who was driving me to his home that night. I don't know why it was the first time ever that I chose to notice but then it stuck with me, and how he was exactly like that in person. I remember another nuance, one where you can tell who's texting you by the number of times your phone rings. I've visited that thought a million times since we parted ways, and now today I can count by the pacing of the notification buzz who's texting me—there are only a handful who do anyway and it's easy to pick between them. 

There was one I encountered recently, on giving preference for a new phone, I parroted what someone once told me, without jumping into extensive context and felt sad when I chose to rewrite the version, "friend" told me this. 

Then there are those thoughts that I shared with them, that have absolutely no home whatsoever. One morning, when I was bed-headed and trying my best to leave the sack (before his parents arrived to meet him), I announced how we'd go and see Taylor Swift together if she were to do an Asia Tour. That was probably the first time when I discovered I liked her enough to make that trip and he must do that because I like him just enough too and since he likes me just enough, we must make it happen. 

I was listening through Lavender Haze a lot, during that time, a track I could never go back to after we parted ways. It recently played on my shuffle and I felt nothing, until I was reminded that it was while this track was playing is when I told him that we'll see Taylor Live. Now that she's performing live in Asia next month and I'm not going, it doesn't bother me at all. It felt like a shared goal, even though the guy had no part to play. 

Similarly, this one time I saw the car number of the guy I really, really liked and it was the same as a driver we both fancied. Awkwardly, between goodbye hugs, I had pointed to him and he hadn't noticed. I think about that moment a lot. Did he play coy because there was an awkward moment or did he truly not register the similarity in the car registration and driver number? I don't know; I'll never know.

I don't want to know.